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Posts Tagged “Indiana”

Romney advisor says his conservatism can be erased – Ever since he launched his first bid for the presidency over five years ago, critics have argued that Mitt Romney’s conservative positions aren’t sincere, and that he would start to abandon them once he was no longer trying to appeal to the Republican primary electorate. I just never expected one of his chief campaign staffers to openly admit it. Yet feeling cocky after Mitt Romney’s strong victory in Illinois, top advisor Eric Fehrnstrom did just that.

Here’s the stunning exchange on CNN (via Greg Sargent):

HOST: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?

FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.

‘Etch A Sketch’ Latest Gaffe From Romney Campaign – For a candidate who has spent months battling the title of “flip-flopper,” perhaps the last thing he would want associated with his name is an Etch A Sketch, those do-over drawing boards that let you shake your scribbles away with the flick of a wrist.

Unfortunately Mitt Romney won’t be able to shake away this comparison any time soon. When his campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom was asked this morning on CNN how the GOP frontrunner would make the pivot to the general election, Fehrnstrom compared Romney’s primary campaign to an Etch A Sketch, a gaffe that spread like wildfire to Romney’s rival’s stump speeches.

“It is time to get behind the nominee,” Bush told the Tribune-Review on Wednesday during a visit to Pittsburgh. “And it is time for the country to focus on the most important thing, which is to elect a president who will create a climate for high growth and job-creating abilities for our country.”

Bush called for the Republican Party to unite behind the former Massachusetts governor, who won the Illinois primary this week with 46.7 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania.

GOP strategist Bruce Haynes said the Bush endorsement is worth a lot to the Romney campaign.

“It’s literally the sound of the referee’s whistle calling the game to an end,” Haynes said.

Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas have declared that they will remain in the race until the Republican National Convention in August in Tampa.

Putting Gov. Bob McDonnell on the ticket as the GOP vice-presidential nominee does not help the Republicans carry the state, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. In a matchup of President Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden against Romney and McDonnell, the Democrats win 50 – 43 percent.

Supporters of Mr. Hatch turned up in strong numbers at some packed Republican caucus meetings around the state, where delegates were elected to next month’s state party convention.

And here in Utah County, a deeply conservative area in the backyard of Brigham Young University, and hotbed of anti-Hatch sentiment, some prominent opponents of the senator failed to win delegate seats.

“It’s going to be a very good night for Hatch,” said Dave Hansen, Mr. Hatch’s campaign manager.

A local election board ruled Thursday that the six-term senator has abandoned his Indiana home and cannot cast a ballot in the state he represents. The Indiana Republican is up for re-election this year and faces a conservative challenger in the state’s May 8 primary.

And at least one of those out-of-luck members of Congress is likely to come from the Bay Area.

Tony Quinn, one of the state's pre-eminent analysts of politics and demographics, said it is hard to look at the numbers in official U.S. Census data released last week and not conclude that the Bay Area will lose a House seat through redistricting. Population has remained fairly flat in the Bay Area, while rising sharply in once-rural areas to the east – a pattern that is replicated in Los Angeles and the Inland Empire.

"The loss of one (Bay Area) congressional incumbent seems likely," he said.

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The Dems will start eating their young soon in the Bay Area.

With the new top two electoral system and geographically based legislative and congressional districts, there will be political upheal for both Dems and the GOP. Look for many incumbent retirements or forced relocations.

President 2012: What We Learned: Here Comes The Mitch – Daniels That Is – Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) is sounding more serious about a presidential campaign, and his "Meet The Press" appearance Sunday will give a telling hint of his intentions. And with a recent NBC/WSJ poll showing two-thirds of GOP primary voters more likely to back a candidate who puts more focus on the economy/deficit than gay marriage/abortion, his "social truce" isn't as unpopular with the base as the CW has suggested.

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I think ultimatley Mitch Daniels WILL run for the Presidency.

To be honest, he knows the field is weak.

IN-Sen: Could Republicans Lose Major Party Status in Indiana? – WISH-TV reports a Democratic lawsuit challenges Secretary of State Charlie White's (R) status "on the ballot last November because his voter registration was allegedly false (a contention backed up by grand jury indictments.) If a judge rules in the Democrats' favor and White is disqualified, the Republicans would not receive the 10% of the vote in the Secretary of State race that is required to maintain major party status."

Possible ramifications: "The lack of major party status would make the 2012 Senate race a convention battle rather than a primary for the GOP. Richard Mourdock's chances of upsetting Richard Lugar would be greatly enhanced in a convention."

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Sen. Richard Lugar would be toast and I doubt he wuuld run for re-election.

There’s been a lot of mixing up what’s going on in Indiana with what’s happening in Wisconsin. Gov. Mitch Daniels ended collective bargaining for state employees in Indiana six years ago. He issued Executive Order 05-14 on his first day in office. Now, the governor is working on codifying in state law what’s been practiced here since then: that it takes legislative action for a state to allow its employees to bargain rather than the stroke of a governor's pen, that state employees may choose to deduct union dues directly from their paychecks but can't be forced to do so (our practice now, and 95 percent of our state employees choose not to pay union dues today) and that current due process for employees continues. This proposal does not extend beyond state employees.

Other states are catching up with what Gov. Daniels has already done, and we’re continuing to aim higher with actions that are designed to create and attract jobs, give children a better education, and continue to reform outdated practices in this state. With the measures the governor has put in place, Indiana has been able to restrain spending, reduce employees, create departments as needed to better serve Hoosiers, hire employees or use private sector contractors where it’s made sense, and put in place a pay for performance system with annual performance evaluations. Indiana has been able to move quickly to make decisions, adjustments, and reductions where needed without collective bargaining slowing the process. Indiana now has the lowest state government employment per capita of any state and the fewest state employees since 1978. Total state payroll, not adjusted for inflation, was $75 million lower in 2010 than 2004.

Gov. Daniels worked to elect a Republican majority in the Indiana House last year to push for education reform, local government reform, a balanced budget and a host of other measures, and that's where his focus is this year. He simply believes the right-to-work debate about private sector employment is best for another day.

Here’s what Gov. Daniels said about public unions and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts on the Diane Rehm show on NPR two days ago:

The most powerful special interests in America today are the government unions. They're the leading financial contributors. They have the biggest PACs they have muscle, a lot of times their contracts provide for time off to go politic and lobby, and over the last few decades, if there were ever injustices or shortfalls in how we took care of government employees, it's been fixed and over-fixed. I think that what Scott Walker is trying to do is in the public interest.

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The Right to Work flap yesterday was for Indiana private employment and not for public employees which Daniels dealt with by executive order.

Meet Three Anti-Koch Left Wing H8 Ralliers: Roger Fraser, Bonnie Reiss, and Don Wallace – For two years the left has tried desperately to find video evidence of Tea Party participants to damn the whole. They have failed so miserably that it became necessary for the creation of the group, CrashTheTeaParty.org, which called for opponents of the Tea Party to dress up as Nazis or in other offensive uniforms, or to carry troubling signs, all in the hopes of getting the mainstream media to falsely portray the fake Tea Party protesters as authentic and representative of the whole.
Well, Christian and I needn’t instigate fake people dressing and acting foolishly, in a racist fashion, or threatening violence. Those at the Rancho Mirage anti-Koch rally (against capitalism, free markets, and gummy bears) have been more than forthright in their extremism. (And now look at what we found in Madison, Wisconsin!)
Since Lisa Graves and the Center for Media and Democracy has now challenged the authenticity of the videos we took, we feel it’s appropriate to isolate those who made the hateful remarks by name.

Obama administration won’t defend Defense of Marriage Act – The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it will no longer defend the constitutionality of the federal government's ban on recognizing same-sex marriages, a rare legal reversal and the latest in a series of political victories for gay rights activists.

The Justice Department had appealed the decision of a federal judge in Massachusetts who struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in July, saying it was obligated to defend federal statutes. The 1996 law defines marriage from the federal perspective as between a man and a woman, which means same-sex married couples are denied access to marriage-based federal benefits.

In an extraordinary change, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Wednesday that he and President Obama had determined – after an extensive review – that the law's key section is unconstitutional. "Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute" in court, Holder said in a statement.

Administration officials said the review was triggered by a court-imposed filing deadline in two new legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, filed in federal courts in New York and Connecticut.

The change in position came after intense lobbying of Justice Department and White House officials by gay rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, according to activists familiar with the White House's thinking. "There has been an all-out effort to get them to do the right thing," said one activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

Obama's relationship with the gay community, a key part of his political base, has been complicated, and activists had strongly opposed the administration's earlier defense of the federal same-sex marriage law. The president has said in the past that he does not support the right of gay couples to marry, though he said in December that his views are "evolving.

But Democrats say that isn’t enough to get them back to the Statehouse.

The Indiana House resumed at 2 p.m. today although most Democrats were gone and the galleries — which earlier were full of protesters who were applauding and chanting — had been cleared by Republican Speaker Brian Bosma.

Shortly before that, House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer spoke to reporters from Urbana, Ill., where most House Democrats are holed up in a Comfort Suites hotels.

Bauer said the House Democrats realize Republicans won’t let them have their hope: taking 11 labor and education bills taken off the table for consideration this session. But they want more than just the one, the “right to work” measure, that Republicans today agreed to send to a study committee.

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The Dems won't be returning because there are now other issues.

Wow – negotiations of legislation in absentia – a new one for American politics